Kylie Jenner to Become Youngest Ever ‘Self-Made’ Billionaire

The Instagram-famous, makeup fanatic, Kylie Jenner apparently has about a billion dollars in her back account! Not too long ago, Forbes crowned the youngest member of the Kardashian clan, Kylie Jenner, with the title of “youngest-ever self-made billionaire”. Kylie Jenner was able to collect this huge fortune through the earnings of her newly famous makeup brand, Kylie Cosmetics. Launched merely two years ago, Kylie Cosmetics has gone above and beyond expectations. It made sales of over $630 million for all its various makeup products. This created quite a stir, bringing forth criticisms and questions from people around the world.

It’s no surprise that there’s so much controversy over whether Kylie Jenner deserved the title of a “self-made” billionaire. As Forbes points out, she attained this huge sum by taking “leverage” of her fame. While she may have started the lucrative makeup business all by herself, its success evidently lies beneath the large-scale advertising and marketing of the products. Her own social media accounts were able to target young women and girls, increasing the influence Kylie had. She gained this influence as a result of her former fame as a Kardashian sister, starring in the notorious reality TV show, “Keeping up with the Kardashians”. Since she practically did nothing to be a part of it, it’s reasonable to say that her fame was not really self-made.

Kylie was born into a rich family, placed in the spotlight since a very young age. She grew up accustomed to that kind of lifestyle. The investments for the Kylie Cosmetics makeup brand came from the money her parents generated for the family. However, that does not mean that she had no role whatsoever in making Kylie cosmetics so successful. She might have been born rich and spoilt but it was clever and pretty smart of her to take such immense advantage of that fame and money instead of just sitting around doing nothing (which she could have easily done for the rest of her life). She was able to successfully seize that opportunity, making her net worth skyrocket.

Despite that, it is understandable why it’s frustrating and demotivating to people that she was able to gain so much in so little time. Critics argue that she did not deserve any of it and that she didn’t even have to work for it. It may be true that she didn’t exactly put in blood, sweat and tears to create this huge makeup empire. But it should also be noted that the work was put in by her parents. The Kardashian reality show only became famous and successful because Kylie’s family was able to work at it consistently. It gave her a platform from which she could eventually bounce off and gain extreme fame leverage.

Nonetheless, most young people Kylie’s age don’t have the same kind of privilege and that’s what continues to be troublesome. Millions of young people, especially girls, follow Kylie Jenner and in my opinion, it creates a fake illusion for them. It convinces them that it’s just that easy to own a couple of Bentley cars and Land Rovers, glorious mansions in California and a net worth of almost $900 dollars.

In turn, they start thinking that if they do not have the same kind of wealth and assets when they’re 21, then there must be something wrong with them. This is absolutely wrong, and a very dangerous mindset to adopt. This is why Forbes shouldn’t have portrayed Kylie as a “self-made” billionaire. That word doesn’t entail the behind-the-scenes of how she got there in the first place. It merely gives the message that she did it all by herself, which it’s evident she didn’t.

Regardless, it’s not our job to decide whether Kylie Jenner “deserved” to become a billionaire or not. It won’t change anything! Her wealth and her luxurious Instagram photos shouldn’t have the power to make us undermine ourselves. It shouldn’t give us the false hope that the same sort of success can be achieved with next to no work at all. Building an empire that huge takes countless hours of time, commitment and hard work, folks. If you yearn for something similar, you must be willing to put in the long hours and the hard work. It’s no easy job but as Kylie has shown us, it’s definitely worth it!